2nd February 2015

And still it comes

We've continued to remove coins in the jewellery area over the last week and were rewarded with a crazy few hours Thursday and Friday. Thursday afternoon we uncovered a rectangular section curved bar of gold and on Friday we found a spiral-wound gold bracelet or torque underneath it and a huge round section torque next to it, under the mysterious stone.

As we continued to clear the coins on Friday morning we realized that the curved rectangular bar appears in fact to be an at least partial curved torque. All the others we've found have been circular cross section or crushed thin sheet. This one appears to be solid gold, about 13 x 7mm across. We can see a central groove cut into the flat sides on at least two faces. The other way that this one is different is that the gold is pale, apparently mixed with higher amounts of silver than normal. Richard Miles, our finder and volunteer was showing us some images of torques he'd seen in the British Museum and there were spiral-wound square section ones there that might be similar. We'll have a better idea when it's fully exposed.

We also can see a second of the very largest smooth gold torques appearing next to it. This is amazing both for it's own size and also for showing that we still haven't reached the limits of the jewellery area. Each time we think we're there something else pops us. We will next work our way around the stone towards the "pointy" end of the hoard. We can see sheet gold emerging half way between the "point" and the stone so it's possible that the jewellery will continue all that way.

We had a visit from a local geologist Ralph Nichols this morning who was able to confirm that the mysterious 20cm stone settled amidst the coins and gold appears to be a local island rock called Mont Mado micro-granite. Though from Jersey, it's from a different part of the island and is unlikely to have been accidently in the area when the hoard was buried. The mystery goes on. We'll know more when we get the stone out and can see what the undersides are like and if the very flat top is artificially worked. Ralph and Olga Finch, our Curator of Archaeology had a good look with lenses and couldn't see any obvious tool marks on it. I'll post new pictures of this area as we remove more coins later this week. Till then it only remains to say Happy Birthday to Reg Meade, our hoard finder and keen volunteer who has been in the lab today sharing good cake and terrible Country and Western.